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As an aide holds up a poster, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) speaks during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee July 31, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC (AFP Photo / Alex Wong)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein referred to the US, Canada and Mexico as “the Homeland” at an NSA Senate briefing on Wednesday, presenting a map that united the three nations as one.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting held to acquire details on the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs, Sen. Feinstein (D-Calif.) made a geographic mistake in which she united three large countries into one. The error went by without comment during the briefing, but generated a significant response upon Read more…

In (Northern Ontario Canada) My radio was picking up some kind of frequency on every channel I went on 14/05/2012 from 10:00PM – It went on for hours… I was at my camp in the middle of the woods with nothing to interfere with my radio… What ever it was, it was powerful enough to take over every FM signal… H.A.A.R.P maybe? (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program)

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Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is in support of extending biometric ID requirements to permanent residents. He says he would consider amending his current omnibus immigration bill to include such a policy.

Photograph by: Postmedia News , National Post

OTTAWA — Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says he supports extending biometric ID requirements to permanent residents and would consider amending his current omnibus immigration bill to make it happen.

“I think in principle, we should be doing everything we reasonably can to identify visitors or immigrants and ensure they don’t represent a threat to Canada’s safety, so biometrics is the best technical tool at our disposal and I think in principle, that it should be applied to not just temporary but also permanent residents,” Kenney said Thursday after testifying before a Commons committee reviewing Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada’s Immigration Act.

After hinting at it during the meeting, he confirmed the government was “considering” amending the bill to ensure Read more…

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An RCMP officer holds Canada’s new $100 banknote, which is made from plastic polymer and is designed to last longer and thwart counterfeiters.(Fabiola Carletti/CBC) Sweden and several other countries are experimenting with cash-free transactions, a trend that is fuelling debate about the need for tangible currency.

Next time you visit Canada, you might use digital currency to purchase your poutine, using something called MintChip backed by the Canadian government. The Royal Canadian Mint announced it’s getting rid of the penny and starting a new e-currency instead, and it wants the software community to help develop it.

The government just launched the MintChip Challenge— which was apparently so popular it’s already fully registered — to seek new digital payment apps for this new virtual currency. The idea is sort of a hybrid, combining the convenience of electronic transactions and the anonymity of cash. It will work via SD cards, but it will have no personal information or bank account data associated with it (so they say). It’s sort of like BitCoin but with actual, government-backed value.

The four-month contest includes 500 developers who will build apps that can demonstrate MintChip’s value. They’ll have to work on a variety of smartphone and desktop browsers. The prize: Solid gold wafers and coins worth about $50,000.

Its anonymity is a pretty unique idea. Other electronic payment systems — PayPal, Square, NFC-enabled phones, etc. — all connect to a person’s credit card or bank account. But cash is a great equalizer; you don’t need to have good credit to use it. MintChip would enable the same type of low-cost transactions for which you’d normally use cash. A Canadian banking group called Interac estimates that small-value transactions under $20 are worth $90 billion to the Canadian economy, the Toronto Star reported.

MintChip still has some kinks to be ironed out, including privacy, security of the currency and other questions. But it’s certainly an interesting concept.

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Canada’s federal budget, released last week, includes the decision to end production of the penny. (Matthew Little/The Epoch Times)

TORONTO—Penny pinchers in Canada may soon turn their attention to nickels and dimes given the news in the country’s federal budget that just came down: pennies are being discontinued.

“Given its declining purchasing value, some Canadians consider the penny more of a nuisance than a useful coin,” notes the announcement that came with the publication of budget.

Credit, debit, and electronic transactions will keep exact purchase prices, but cash transactions will round prices that end in 3 cents up to 5 cents, and round prices that end in 2 cents down to zero.

While the Royal Canadian Mint will stop producing the penny, the coin will Read more…

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The United States is shifting its focus from the Atlantic across to the Pacific. However, if an Arctic century is on the horizon, then China is at the forefront of it. While Washington enhances its relationships across the Asia-Pacific basin, Beijing is busy engaging Arctic Ocean coastal states en masse. The Middle Kingdom is apparently interested in the commercial viability of new shipping lanes and developing the resources that lie underneath and along the Arctic seabed. Ostensibly to achieve its objectives, China is engaging the region at an unprecedented pace. Beijing’s comprehensive engagement of Arctic states demonstrates that China’s ambition isn’t just to be a Pacific power, but a global one. Questions that remain are: what is Beijing’s intention in the Arctic, and by extension what type of global power will China be?

China has been in the Arctic since the early 1990s, but only recently began seeking to enhance its engagement there as a permanent observer in the Arctic Council. The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum that addresses issues such as the management of resources, climate change, and Arctic environment maintenance. The Council has Full article here